Feb. 1, 2018, 6:58 a.m.

A former spokesman for President Trump’s legal team is reportedly planning to tell special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that White House Communications Director Hope Hicks said Donald Trump Jr.’s emails about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians “will never get out” in a previously undisclosed conference call, according to the New York Times.

A former spokesman for President Trump’s legal team is reportedly planning to tell special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that White House Communications Director Hope Hicks said Donald Trump Jr.’s emails about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians “will never get out” in a previously undisclosed conference call, according to the New York Times.

The New York Times reports that Mark Corallo, who resigned from Trump’s legal team in July, was concerned that Hicks “could be contemplating obstructing justice.” A lawyer for Hicks denied the allegations to the New York Times.

When news of the Trump Tower meeting first broke, the White House released a statement saying that the meeting was primarily about Russian adoptions. However, emails showed that Trump Jr. accepted the meeting after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

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Feb. 1, 2018, 5:57 a.m.

President Trump seems to have a fixation with the size of his audiences — and with getting the numbers wrong. He was wrong again Thursday, falsely claiming that the broadcast audience for his first State of the Union address was “the highest number in history.”

After a rare three consecutive days of not starting his day on Twitter and stirring up controversy, Trump shed his restraints, tweeting twice against congressional Democrats and a third time boasting that his audience of 45.6 million viewers for Tuesday’s night’s address broke all records.

Jan. 31, 2018, 7:19 p.m.

A spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) said the adjustments were only “minor edits.”

Rep. Devin Nunes “secretly altered” a classified and controversial memo about secret surveillance during the 2016 presidential campaign before he sent it to the White House for review, Rep. Adam Schiff said on Wednesday night.

A spokesman for Nunes (R-Tulare), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the adjustments were only “minor edits” and brushed off the accusation from Schiff (D-Burbank), the panel’s ranking Democrat.

In a letter to Nunes, Schiff wrote that “material changes” modified the four-page document that members of Congress were able to read before the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines Monday to release it.

Jan. 31, 2018, 12:37 p.m.

Janet L. Yellen at her last news conference as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, in December. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images)

Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday even as they gave an upbeat assessment of the economy and predicted that inflation would finally move up this year — a signal that rates could rise faster than expected in coming months.

It was the Fed’s first monetary policy meeting of the year and the last for Janet L. Yellen, who steps down as chairwoman at the end of this week after four years in the job. She will be replaced by Fed governor Jerome Powell.

Policymakers voted unanimously after their two-day meeting to keep the Fed’s benchmark short-term interest rate at a range of 1.25% to 1.5%. That’s a little less than inflation; hence, monetary policy remains supportive of labor-market and economic growth.

Jan. 31, 2018, 10:24 a.m.

President Trump told a congressman after his State of the Union speech Tuesday night that he “100%” intended to make the memo public. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

The FBI, in an official statement, said Wednesday it has “grave concerns” about the accuracy of a classified memo prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee.

The memo, which reportedly alleges that the FBI abused its surveillance authority in connection with a secret court warrant, should not be released, the bureau said in the statement, warning that the memo excludes essential information and is misleading.

“We have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the statement said.

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Jan. 31, 2018, 9:54 a.m.

South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy said that he will not run for reelection and will "instead be returning to the judicial system." Gowdy had previously chaired a highly partisan panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. (Jan. 31, 2018)

South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy said Wednesday that he will not run for reelection and will "instead be returning to the judicial system."

Gowdy is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and previously chaired a highly partisan panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor. In a statement, he said that "whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system."

Jan. 31, 2018, 8:54 a.m.

Hillary Clinton says she should not have let a senior campaign advisor keep his job after a female staffer accused him of sexual harassment in 2007.

"The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women…," Clinton wrote on Facebook on Tuesday night. "So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't."

The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. I’ve tried to do so here at home, around the...

Clinton said that senior campaign staff and legal counsel confirmed that the behavior by faith-based advisor Burns Strider had occurred after the woman came forward. Her campaign manager recommended that Strider be terminated, but Clinton said she instead demoted him, docked his pay, required counseling, separated him from the victim, and warned him that he'd be fired if he did it again.

Jan. 31, 2018, 8:45 a.m.

President Trump opened his State of the Union speech Tuesday night with a plea for unity forged on common ground. By the end of his address, it was clear how little he would give up for it.

Trump said he was "extending an open hand" to opposition Democrats gathered in the chamber. By the end of the speech, it may have felt like the back of one.

The president's tone and tempo were slowed and moderated by his use of a teleprompter, so he appeared more statesman-like than the raucous Trump seen in campaign events — and expressed in his Twitter feed — except when he adopted his rally habit of applauding for himself as the audience did.